Chapter 2: Factors Reshaping the Digital Banking Sectors

This chapter looks at a number of diverse elements that led to the rise of the digital banking industry. In this age of rapid digitisation, today's bank transactions and activities are mostly done on mobile phones or other smart devices instead of going back and forth between a traditional branch lobby. With more and more customers seeking banking services accessible around the clock from the palm of their hand, based on the numerous experiential data digital platforms have accumulated for many years in the field and other places, traditional financial institutions will have no way but to break open their thinking about how to deliver those services to think. Governments and their regulators are beginning to see the potential risks posed by the new digital banking technology and want consumer protection, competition put under even stricter conditions for players as well and system stability all guaranteed. Above all, it is evidence of something people cannot ignore: the sharp upward trend of cybersecurity risk in recent years. The advent of digitalisation eliminated any excuse for storing sensitive financial data without the most modern cyber defences. Then, at a further level, financial tech start-ups come up like crocuses in spring while Bigtech companies all over the globe are jumping into banking. Both cooperation opportunities and competitive challenges await traditional banks. However, bank customers' changing demographics (millennials and GenZ) are the most vivid examples as they age, together with global universal financial inclusion trends, bringing about social and economic challenges.